People have begun to work on a method for counting erythrocytes as early as in 1852, and a counting plate for counting erythrocytes was invented in 1855. An American scientist named W. H. Coulter proposed in 1947 a patent technology which counts particles using a resistance method, and this technology was successfully applied to count the erythrocytes in 1956. With the fast change of science and technology, various ways for detecting the number of erythrocytes emerge constantly. At present, the research and development means applied mainly includes: capacitive mode, photoelectric mode and laser mode, centrifugal mode, resistance mode and a combination of each mode. So far, many countries have begun to produce various types of erythrocyte analyzers; after half a century of development, above analyzer has achieved a very significant improvement. The classification of the erythrocytes becomes refined and the counting becomes more and more precise. However, erythrocyte parameters of the existing erythrocyte morphological analysis are obtained through calculating the mean value. For example, morphological classification parameters used for the anaemia, such as Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV), Mean Corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH) and Mean Corpuscular haemoglobin Concentration (MCHC), are all calculated according to erythrocyte quantity, haemoglobin concentration and hematocrit value, but are not actually measured values; therefore, the measured data of the erythrocyte quantity, the haemoglobin content and the hematocrit value must be accurate, otherwise, the obtained morphological classification parameters would have great errors.
The artificial microscopy (or called as manual microscopic examination) is a classical detection method, which manually measures the diameter of each erythrocyte through a micrometer on an eyepiece of a microscope and then analyzes the data for judgement. However, the method of the artificial microscopy causes a heavy workload for workers, and the error judgment can be easily caused due to fatigue, and patient's diagnosis may be delayed due to low working efficiency and slow working speed.
Therefore, how to make erythrocyte counting quicker, more accurate and more cost-effective is the problem confronted in clinical examination in hospitals at present.